CHAPTER XVI.
WE HAVE HIM.
While the Major and Eric were sitting together, Sonnenkamp was with the mother in the library; Roland and the aunt, in the recess, had a great book open before them, containing outline drawings of Greek sculpture.
The boy now looked up and cried,—
"Father, only think that Herr Eric must sell this fine library of his father's, and there is not a single leaf here that his father has not written on, and it must go now into the hands of strangers."
"It would be a favor to me," said Sonnenkamp, turning to the aunt, "if you, gracious Fräulein, would take my son out to walk; I have something to say to Frau Dournay."
Roland went away with the aunt.
Sonnenkamp now asked the professor's wife if what Roland had stated were true.
She replied in the affirmative, adding that the danger was over, as Count Wolfsgarten had furnished the required sum of money.
When Sonnenkamp heard the name and the amount, a surprising transformation seemed to take place in him. He said that he allowed no one the privilege of helping Eric in money-matters; he claimed that as exclusively his own. And now, having once begun to be beneficent, a new strength seemed to be unfolded in him; he considered himself very fortunate in being permitted to render assistance to such an excellent family, even if Eric should not remain with him.
The professor's widow could not refrain from confessing that it required great strength of soul to receive favors, and that her family were not accustomed to it. She spoke of her son.
"He is a child in feeling," she said, "without anything false, incapable of any indirection, a strong, steadfast, sincere, manly, and noble character. I ought not, as his mother, to say this, but I can only congratulate you. You can entrust to him that which you value most, as the precious jewel of your life, and I tell you that whoever loves Eric has a heaven in his heart, and whoever does not love him is without a heart."
Sonnenkamp rose, drawing a deep breath; he would have liked to say, How happy was that man who could call this woman mother; but he restrained himself. He stood before the flower-stand, which was artistically arranged, by an invisible contrivance, in a pyramidal shape, and all so well cared for and ordered, that it was a pleasure to behold it. He led the conversation to botany; Eric had informed him that his mother had a knowledge of it, and he was happy to meet in her an associate in his special pursuit—for he considered botany his specialty.
He turned the conversation, aptly and sympathizingly, to the lady's past history. He asked first, whether she would not take pleasure in coming, at some time, to the Rhine.
She replied that she should like much to do so, and that she had a special desire to see once more, before she died, a friend of her youth, the present Superior of the island-convent, and principal of the seminary.
"Are you so intimate with the Superior?" said Sonnenkamp, and something occurred to him which he could not make clear to himself, but he evidently impressed it upon himself to reserve this for further consideration. He smiled in a very friendly manner, when the lady dwelt at length, in a pleasant way, upon the strangeness of life. There sits a lady in her cage, and here another has her nest in a little garden, and they cannot come to each other. The older one becomes, indeed, so much the more enigmatical seem often the interwoven threads of human relations in the world.
She added, gently closing her eyes, that it had seemed so only since the death of her husband, for she had been able to say everything to him, and he had unfolded clearly and harmoniously what seemed to her a confused puzzle.
Sonnenkamp experienced something like a feeling of devotion, as the wife said this.
She made mention now of her life as a lady of the court, and her eyes glistened while speaking of the Princess dowager.
"I had not only the happiness and the honor," she said, "to visit and oversee with her, and yet oftener in her name and by her order, the many various institutions of beneficence of which her highness was the protectress, but I had the yet more important and often more melancholy, though blessed and refreshing duty, to visit those, or to institute inquiries concerning those, who applied to the Princess for assistance, often with heartrending cries for help. The greater part of the letters were entrusted to me, either to bring in a report concerning them, or to answer them. This was a sad, but, as I said before, a blessed and an ennobling service."
While the lady was thus speaking, placing at the same time her delicate, soft hand upon her heart, as if she must repress the overflowing feelings of this recollection, her whole countenance was illuminated by an inexpressible tenderness.
Sonnenkamp rose suddenly, as if some irresistible power had called to him, and there was deep feeling in his voice, as he said,—
"Might I be allowed, noble lady, to offer you a compensation, if you will be induced to live in our neighborhood? I am no prince, but I am, perhaps, as much overrun with begging letters. Our good Major frequently helps me in instituting inquiries. But you, honored lady, could render much more effectual service in this matter; and even if one cannot render assistance in every case, it is always a consolation to the poor to receive at least a friendly answer, and your look is radiant with a mother's blessing."
It was an hour in which Sonnenkamp experienced a blessedness such as he thought himself wholly incapable of receiving, and his fixed purpose was,—
"This must be; here is the starting-point in life which you have so long desired, and all the past is annihilated."
Sonnenkamp had formed an entirely different notion of the professor's widow and her sister-in-law. He saw in Eric's mother a stately lady of fine mind and high-bred manners; she was pale, and this paleness was very much increased by her black cap and her mourning dress.
The aunt seemed to him still handsomer.
It was a peculiar gesture that Sonnenkamp made in the air; it was as if he seized hold of the two ladies: for he mentally transplanted them to his splendid rooms, where they did the honors of the house, adorning his house, and his house adorning them, and when company were present a whist-table was formed, as a matter of course.
Sonnenkamp was obliged to restrain himself from asking the ladies at once whether they played whist, and with the consciousness that he was thinking about it, and with the exertion of self-control necessary to keep it to himself, his countenance assumed a variety of expressions.
During the conversation Roland had left the room, holding the aunt's hand; he now came in with Eric and the Major, holding in his hand a large letter with the seal of the ministry of education.
Roland said,—
"I beseech you, aunt, let me speak."
All were surprised at the appearance of the boy, who now said, holding up the letter,—
"The aunt has confided to me, that here is the decree appointing you to be director for the keeping of the beautiful bronze and marble statues of antiquity. Eric, I am not made of bronze or marble, and when you are there among those figures it will freeze you, and it will also freeze me forever, if you abandon me. Eric, don't do it; don't do it to yourself, or to me. Stay with me, I will stay with thee. I beseech you, Eric, do not leave me; I am not plaster; I am not marble; do not leave me. I beseech thee, Eric, do not forsake me—do not forsake me."
All were thrilled by this scene, and while the boy was speaking thus, the Major said in a low tone,—
"This is no child. What can it be? The lad speaks just as if a holy spirit possessed him!"
Eric went to Roland, raised him in his strong arms, held him high up, and said,—
"Roland, as I hold you now, and you hold me, so hold fast to me with all the strength of your life! We will together grow into something great; here is my hand."
The letter was forgotten. The mother begged to be permitted to open it, and she had hardly run it over, when she cried with a lightened heart,—
"Thank God, Eric, you need not be ungrateful."
The letter contained an expression of regret that the place had been already given to a young man of the nobility, who had shown himself unfitted for a diplomatic post.
Sonnenkamp requested them to let him have the letter; he might perhaps make use of it as a document against Eric's enemies, who charged him with being in ill-favor at court. And now he desired that mother and aunt would remove at once to Villa Eden; but Eric answered positively in the negative. He himself agreed to go, but his mother and aunt could not before the autumn; he must first become initiated, with Roland alone, into the family life.
No one was happier, that everything had turned out so well, than the Major. It was decided to start to-day. The Major promised that he and Fräulein Milch would help the mother and aunt in all the arrangements, when they removed later in the season; nothing else would do, as Fräulein Milch must be consulted in everything. He now requested leave of absence for an hour, to visit friends in the university-town, whom he did not know personally.
After the Major had gone, Sonnenkamp said, in a kindly tone of patronage, that the Major probably had some brother Freemasons to visit. Eric also asked to be excused, as he had yet to take leave of one man.
He went to see Professor Einsiedel. The Professor was always uniformly ready for every friendly call, but as uniformly angry, if, forgetting the hour of his lecture, any one came during the half hour previous; he could be very angry. His anger consisted in saying,—
"But, dear friend! how could you forget this? You must surely know that I have a lecture at two o'clock, and can now see no one. No, I must beg you very earnestly—very—very—very earnestly beg you to note my lecture-hour."
And while saying this, he pressed one's hand with great good-nature.
When Eric said that it would be of no service for him to note this for the future, as he was going to leave town to-day, Einsiedel requested to be informed of the hour when the train left; perhaps he would then meet him, but he would not make a definite promise, for if he did, it would disturb him in the delivery of his lecture.
Eric left him. The Professor went with him to the door, took off his black cap, and excused himself for not accompanying him down the steps, "I beg earnestly—very—I lecture at two," he turned back into his study. Eric was sure that the Professor would see him again.
The whole town lifted up their eyes, as the six persons were going to the station. Sonnenkamp escorted Frau Dournay, the Major the aunt, and Eric held Roland by the hand. They had to wait for the train to come in. Suddenly Professor Einsiedel made his appearance; and it was a great deal for the slender little man to do, as it interrupted the regular order of the day.
Eric introduced the Major and Sonnenkamp. Sonnenkamp had no special word to say to him, and the Major, notwithstanding his kind feelings towards everybody, could not find just the right friendly expressions with which to address this delicate, feeble-looking person, when Eric introduced him as his teacher and master. Roland, on the contrary, with hearty pleasure seized the hand of the little man, soft as a child's, and said,—
"Do you know how you seem to me? You are my grand-teacher; for Herr Eric is my teacher, and you are his teacher, and so you are my grand-teacher; and if you want a dog, I will send a dog to you."
Professor Einsiedel quoted some Greek words out of Plato to Eric, which expressed the joy one feels in a beautiful animated youth; then he patted the boy on the shoulder, thanked him for the offer of the dog, and said that as he did not like to bid goodbye in the rush, he would now bid them farewell before the train arrived. He considered that those who were waiting at the station had already started on their journey, and taking Eric aside, he said in a voice trembling with emotion,—
"You are well enough off, and you must also marry, for the apostle Paul says, 'Whoever careth for the things that are of the world ought to marry.'" He requested him to write more particularly concerning Clodwig's antiquities, then shook him by the hand. Roland also extended his hand to the professor.
Eric looked after the little man going away, who was in his eyes a walking temple of the spirit of wisdom; and the good little man rubbed his tender hand on his coat, for Roland had pressed it a little too hard.
The train came thundering in. The leave-taking was hurried. Roland kissed repeatedly the mother and aunt, and Sonnenkamp kissed the mother's hand.
His mother said in a low tone to Eric on taking leave,—
"You are forsaking me. I am at rest, I know you are not forsaking yourself, and so you are still with me. Go, then; hold thyself within thyself, and me in thee, and it will be well with thee, and well with me."
In the railway-car the Major bent towards Eric and whispered,—
"I have learned something about your father."
"What is it?"
"Something good for you and for me. Your father, who has gone to the eternal home, belonged to our brotherhood. It is your right to claim assistance, and my duty to give it. I only beg that you will never thank me; we are not allowed to thank one another."
At the first station the Major took Eric aside, and asked him whether he had made a positive agreement as to salary, indemnification at dismissal, and pension after the completion of the tutorship. Eric treated the subject with indifference, and the Major gave him to understand that he had full power to grant all his demands. He advised Eric to strike now while the iron was hot. But Eric not seeming at all disposed to take up with the advice, the Major desisted, murmuring to himself,—
"Here now, Fräulein Milch is always saying that I am not practical; and here now is a man who is so learned, and can turn himself round and face about seven times before I can get up on my feet, and he is ever so much less practical than I am." The Major was almost delighted that Eric was so unpractical; he could tell Fräulein Milch all about it.
On the way the diamond ring was redeemed, and Eric said to Roland,—
"Let your father take the ring; I would prefer that you would not wear a ring for the future."
Roland gave the ring to his father, and the Major said, humming to himself,—
"He has him! He has him by bit and curb."
It was evening when they drove by the small vine-covered house. Roland pointed out the house to Eric with glistening eyes, but uttered no word. They drove into the grounds of Villa Eden, where the air was laden with the fragrance of roses, for all the roses in Sonnenkamp's garden were in fresh bloom.
"We have it," cried the architect from the castle to the Major, as he was getting out.
"Have what?"
"We have found the castle-spring."
"And we have him," cried the Major, pointing to Eric.
And from this day, the Major began many of his stories with the words,—
"At the time I rode with Herr Sonnenkamp in the extra train."